A boat carrying about 25 Haitian migrants capsized Thursday off the southeast tip of the Dominican Republic, killing at least three.
Authorities recovered three bodies and rescued another 10 passengers, while naval units continue to search for more victims.
Juan Pablo Sandoval, a spokesman for the Dominican Navy, said all three fatalities were Haitian women, and among the survivors were six men and four women, one of them pregnant. All were taken to a hospital in Higuey, 161 km east of the capital Santo Domingo.
The migrants "were apparently brought to the country (the Dominican Republic) directly from Haiti, as none of those rescued live speak a word of Spanish," Sandoval told local reporters.
The accident occurred early Thursday some 3.2 kilometers off the coast of Bavaro in La Altagracia province, 207 km east of Santo Domingo, area residents said.
The 20 to 25 migrants had departed earlier in the morning aboard a boat believed to have been stolen from a hotel in an attempt to reach Puerto Rico in the eastern Caribbean Sea.
According to the Dominican Army, so far this year, 137 Haitian migrants have been detained while trying to reach Puerto Rico.
Each year, hundreds of migrants from Haiti and other countries in the region try to reach Puerto Rico by crossing the 130-km canal that separates that country from the Dominican Republic.
Friday 21 February 2014
http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/article_xinhua.aspx?id=201968
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